Grip Shifter, Shifting and Hand/Wrist Movement

I have two bikes, both with grip shifters. Both of these required that I move my hand/wrist in the same direction to shift. Thus, to shift up a gear from say Second to Third gear, I rolled or moved my hand/wrist forward and away from my body. To shift down a gear from say Fifth to Fourth gear, I rolled my hand backwards and towards my body. This type of movement seemed natural and intuitive to me and I thought all bikes with grip shifters worked this way.

Then I recently got one of my bikes upgraded by my LBS from a 3 speed Shimano IGH to a 7 speed Shimano IGH. Now the 7 speed hub works in the opposite manner to what I described above. Thus, on this bike to shift up a gear from Sixth to Seventh gear I actually roll my hand backwards and towards my body and to shift down a gear from Fifth to Fourth, I roll my hand forwards and away from my body.

I was surprised that the upgraded bike came this way. I have gotten used to it by now after a few weeks but I have to think more about it when riding or else I will shift in the opposite direction I intend. I am also afraid that once I start switching more between both bikes I will have a harder time keeping them straight. Any experiences with this? Obviously not all bikes work the way I initially thought though. How do your grip shifters work?

Hmmm, that would be tricky. In hindsight, you shoulda gone 8 or 11 speed IGH, as they have trigger shift options.

If you can't get used to it, and you have Shimano compatible Gripshifts (MRX, Attack, X-ray, SRT-xxx, etc) on your derailer bikes I think you could probably get a couple of Shimano Rapid Rise rear derailers on those two bikes and I think that would make the shifting backwards to match the IGH bike.

It really won't be too big of an adjustment. You are likely to make a bad shift every now and then, but it's not that big of a deal. Shimano has been somewhat vitess-lexic for about 15 years now - their stuff absolutely rocks in terms of quality and function but sometimes, without any warning or reason, they offer a product that is identical in every way to a previous one, except the shifting works in reverse. They made standard 'high-normal' derailleurs for 30+ years, then one day on the mid '90s they inexplicably came out with 'Rapid Rise' (low normal) rear derailleurs; their IGHs shift one way or the other depending on the direction the wind was blowing when the designer got up (8 speed alfine is pull-to-upshift, and 11 speed alfine is pull-to-downshift).

I have personally had a bike with one of every configuration and I don't have a problem going back and forth.